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How to cheat!
No time to cook? Delia has come up with an ingenious solution: how to cheat. From cakes to casseroles, quick supper dishes to special-occasion fare, it's all here! And keep an eye on the site: in the spring, Delia will be back with more short-cut sensations.
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Chicken
Marinated Chicken with Honey and Ginger served with a Mango Salsa
What we are going to do is buy a tin of Marks and Spencer's extremely brilliant ready-prepared sliced mangoes and our two other heroes this week are Peppadew prepared peppers and Blue Dragon chilli dipping sauce so no fad and fiddle here either.
Chicken Breasts with Stem Ginger Sauce
Preserved stem ginger is a wonderful storecupboard standby and I always have a jar of it handy. It keeps indefinitely so it doesn't matter if you don't use it often and there's never any waste. This is good served with a crisp salad or some fresh rocket leaves.
Spiced Chicken Madras
We all know that authentic curry dishes involve a whole array of spices that are first roasted, then ground and blended to bring about all those deep aromas and flavours that charm and beguile us. But, oh dear, the time it takes!
The cheat's task is to short-circuit all that, but still achieve something not far short.
A Short-cut Chicken Cacciatora
Excuse the pun here, but I have a bone of contention than needs to be aired: that is, why is it so difficult to buy part-boned chicken breasts? The presence of the part-bone makes such a difference to the succulence and eating quality of cooked chicken.
Chicken Véronique
This one's an absolute doddle, as the actual work involved is minimal. Given that none of us really wants to stand around meticulously browning a chicken after a hard day, here we are going to let the oven do the work and as a result have lots of lovely time to shower, do a crossword or, like me, watch Channel Four News.
A Sort of Chicken Basque
A taste of the Basque region, in which peppers, onions, olives and chorizo sausage go together with chicken to make this famous dish. The short-cut involves a jar of roasted red and yellow pepper sauce and the rest is just a throw-it-all-together act. I have calculated the work should not take more than 15 minutes of your time but the results are incredibly good.
Chicken Paprika
Whilst there is the minimum of cooking here, because of the sauce and the ready-roasted peppers, it's all a real doddle – it won't take more than about 15 minutes of your time then leaves you free whilst it cooks happily all on its own.
Toad-in-the-Hole Easy
Whilst this has long been a great British national favourite, non-cooks are understandably nervous about making Yorkshire puddings. However Marks and Spencer yet again come to the rescue with light, crisp, ready-made Yorkshires. What's more (they really seem to know about these things) they are made with real beef dripping.
Lamb Koftas in Chilli Pepper Sauce
The real version of this is a bit of a fiddle, as browning the meatballs takes time – as indeed does making the sauce from scratch. However, browning the koftas in the oven brilliantly cuts down the time, and makes me wonder why I didn't always do it like this.
Braised Steak with a Wild Mushroom and Madeira Sauce
This is seriously seriously good. When you serve it you will receive nothing but adoration and praise and no-one will ever vaguely suspect your ingenious little short cut. For me it hails the first taste of winter comfort food.
Spanish Pork Stew with Potatoes and Chorizo
All this recipe involves is some initial chopping, followed by an extremely quick assembly job. Then the whole lot is popped into the oven out of sight and out of mind for 11/2 hours.
Lamb Ossobuco with an ‘almost’ Risotto Milanese
Not authentically Italian I know, I know. But in this country veal shanks are a devil to get hold of and neck fillets of lamb are absolutely everywhere. So why not, I thought, and why not indeed because this is supremely good.
Vegetarian
Thick Onion Tart
This week's hero ingredient is, I feel, going to provide us with masses of lovely, yummy cheat recipes. Ready-rolled pastry was an enormous breakthrough but ready-rolled and already lining a baking tin is genius. Keep them in the freezer and you can whip up a filling any old time, sweet or savoury.
Spinach and Egg Kari with Fresh Tomato and Red Onion Chutney
Bengali hot and sour kari sauce is a new curry sauce in Sainsbury's which everyone here has given the thumbs up to. You can if you like use cooked chicken or large prawns but I like it best with eggs, which then has the added bonus of being vegetarian.
Bloody Mary Soup
More of a Virgin Mary really, but there's nothing to stop you adding a shot of vodka if you have the mind to. Honestly, though, it won't need it because it has a lovely spicy kick of its own, and the very best news is it must easily be the fastest soup on record, although it tastes as though it took hours!
A Fricassee of Eggs with Spinach and Fiorentina Sauce
This is so special it's hard to believe it's so easy. If you don't live near a Sainsbury's you can use any fresh cheese sauce for this and heat it gently with some chopped spinach leaves first.
Fish and seafood
Gratin of Fish Dieppoise
This is a take on a classic old Normandy recipe – I think the original was made with sole. Here I've used tail end of haddock but any white fish of your choice can be used.
Mediterranean ‘Red’ Grilled Fish
For this week's recipe I've discovered an ace hero ingredient – or rather Lucy (our top of the pops chef at the football club) has. Tesco's Sweet Red Pepper Tapenade is a whiz of an ingredient – a thick, concentrated mixture of red peppers, sun-dried tomato paste and virgin olive oil.
Mexican Crab Salad with Chilli Mayo
This is the cheat's answer to eating something cool on a hot, sunny day, and if it happens to be an alfresco lunch, so much the better – there are lots of robust, gutsy flavours here which I think is the essential criterion for outdoor eating.
Hot Chilli Prawns with Melting Cheese
I can't quite believe that something as effortless as this can be so outstandingly good. It's not even a cheat in the truest sense, since I have not used any short-cut ingredients apart from Sainsbury's ready-grated mixed Italian cheeses.
Alex MacKay’s Cheats’ Sea Bream with Artichokes, Tapenade and Tomatoes
Alex Mackay is the very talented young chef who works with me on the food and wine workshops at Norwich City Football Club, and this quick and simple recipe is adapted from his outstandingly good book Cooking in Provence.
Scallops in the Shell
This, if I say it myself, is very classy, and I promise no-one will guess there's a very subtle cheat going on. Just get hold of a tub of Tesco fresh chilled cheese sauce, and the rest is a doddle.
Avocado with Prawns or Prawn and Avocado Cocktail
This is an amazingly brilliant cheat and absolutely everyone adores it. All very satisfying, and zero work!
Wild Salmon and Caper Fish Cakes with Watercress Hollandaise
Marks & Spencer have given us a classy product – wild salmon from Canada. Add to that some ready-to-go mashed potatoes and a fresh hollandaise sauce, and this recipe turns out to be quite a quick and wacky little number coming from someone who might not be deep into cooking.
Gratin of Dover Sole with Broccoli, Leek and Gruyere Sauce
If you like the idea of a brilliant supper for two in about 20 minutes flat look no further than this princely fish cooked with vegetables in a creamy sauce.
Pasta and gnocchi
Gnocchi with Parma Ham and Sage
The great advantage of now being able to buy potato gnocchi in ambient packs with a long shelf life is that you always have something that can be rustled up into a fast supper dish at a moment's notice.
Linguine with Sardines, Chilli and Capers
Good old tinned sardines are fashionable again and are an ideal storecupboard ingredient – great for serving on toast sprinkled with a little balsamic vinegar and lots of seasoning. This is also the perfect storecupboard meal for two, made in moments and good for students or anyone on a tight budget.
Gratin of Pasta with Leeks and Bacon
This was a recipe from way back: it was supremely popular, I remember, and became quite a perennial in our house and amongst various friends.
Macaroni Mamma Mia
Why the name? Well, actually because of my mum. I was brought up on evocative bowls of heavenly Macaroni Cheese, which were a regular part of her repertoire but always with subtle changes – like the addition of mushrooms or bacon or whatever was to hand.
A Gratin of Gnocchi with Watercress and Spring Onion Salad
Gnocchi, like pasta, has a long shelf life and sits happily waiting to be called forth at a moment's notice when you either haven't had time to shop or for the impromptu supper you weren't expecting. This recipe will work with any cheese you happen to have, but it becomes superlative when made with Gorgonzola.
Asparagus Cannelloni
Asparagus is great in this recipe, not least because its shape and design make it perfect for rolling up in cannelloni wraps. Then added to that is one of Sainsbury's excellent range of fresh Italian sauces – this one is a fresh asparagus sauce. If I do say it myself the whole thing is a triumph considering you're not going to have to do very much more than pop it in the oven!
Gnocchi Carbonara
This is something new, but also something very old. My first ever cookery book was published in 1971. Called How To Cheat At Cooking, it was a book for people who didn't want, or didn't have time, to cook.
Light lunches
Gratin of Eggs with Chilli and Chorizo
Anyone for grilled eggs? Not in the normal repertoire of cooking skills I will admit, but a glorious dodge for cheats who do not have the time or patience to hang around for ovens to pre-heat.
Chestnut Soup with Bacon and Thyme Croutons
A bone from a baked ham makes a good stock for this one – but if you use vegetable stock, it is still an excellent soup.
Grilled Polenta with Sage, Ham and Melted Fontina Cheese
Ready-made polenta is a great product and now very widely available. In this recipe you will be able to create a supremely good first course for six or light lunch for two in what seems like only moments.
Desserts
Petits Monts Blancs
A time of feasting should mean lots of special treats for everyone, and there's one treat that's particularly special for me and that's crème de marrons – sweetened puréed chestnuts that have a kind of thick, toffee-like consistency and a quite unique flavour and texture.
Ginger and Maple Syrup Gateau
What this is is an extremely fast assembly job that turns into a very classy Christmas dessert, which not only looks the business but eats like an absolute dream.
Coconut Lime Jellies with a Puree of Mango and Lime
This extremely easy little number fills perfectly what has long been a gap in my own culinary repertoire, ie what to serve for a dessert after something hot, spicy and Oriental. This I have to say is it. Something cool and luscious that slips down easily and at the same time cools the fieryness.
Caramelised Apple Tart
This is an extremely good cheat: wafer-thin pastry, light as a whisper, a little squidgy bit of Bramley apple topped with some sliced Cox's then (and this is the great bit) caramelised with ready-made natural caramel, which needs simply painting over the apples with a pastry brush. Serve it with lots of luscious crème fraiche, and you could be in Normandy!
Cheat’s Chocolate Trifle
This one's either for people who don't like to cook or for devoted cooks who nonetheless need something really speedy. First, you need to zip round the supermarket to collect the ingredients, then, after the cherries have soaked, this is all made in moments.
An Unlikely Lemon Gateau
If ever you find yourself having to make a cake for something special like a birthday, here (I'm delighted to tell you) is how to avoid actually baking a cake yourself whilst at the same time producing something 'homemade' that's luscious and lovely.
A Summer Trifle with Strawberries and Strawberry Purée
Cheating at trifle has become second nature for me, partly because the sublime combination of 2 key cheat ingredients replaces beautifully the slog and time spent making a proper custard.
Mini Pavlovas with Strawberries and Mascarpone
Marks and Spencer meringue nests have won a high accolade from me. Ingredients listed on the packet are sugar and egg whites and since that's all that goes into a meringue anyway what you're actually buying is the real thing but without all the bother.
Strawberry Champagne Jellies
Well, not champagne exactly, but some rosé fizz which gives the jelly a lovely sparkle in the mouth.
Rhubarb and Amaretti Crumble with Vanilla Bean Custard
The thing about this crumble is that you can just fling all the ingredients into a processor and, at the push of a button, you have what must be the very best crumble topping of all.
A Summer Trifle with Raspberries and Raspberry Puree
There is positively no cooking involved here, it's just a quick assembly job – but then when you come to eat it you won't believe it could be that easy. It is important to find a ready-made custard with a high cream content – some own-label supermarket custards we tried were less successful.
